Phase I: Complete

Time for a pit stop.

We arrived at Bock Marine in Beaufort, NC yesterday afternoon. The total trip from Woods Hole, MA took 15 calendar days. Of those, 5 were weather days. The total distance logged was 619 nm.

Upon arrival Andante was immediately hauled and washed and blocked in preparation for some heavy-duty bottom work beginning early next week. There are currently many layers of old paint on her bottom, cracked and peeling. Rather than just another touch-up job as we’ve done for the past few years, Andante will have all the old paint blasted off and a new epoxy barrier coat applied. Then we’ll apply fresh antifouling bottom paint.

A number of other maintenance tasks and improvements will be completed during this one-month pit stop. Some of these are jobs that require the boat to be out of the water (anodes, transducers, prop service) and other jobs are just a lot easier in the yard (hull polishing and waxing, some varnishing).

The big picture plan remains the same: Work for several weeks, fly home for Thanksgiving, then relaunch in early December and resume sailing south.

If you are dodging shrimp boats there is a good chance you are in North Carolina.
All 30,000 lbs of Andante lifted out of the water at Bock Marine. There were more barnacles on the hull than usual as we skipped painting last year in anticipate of major bottom work this year. The last few days of travel on inland rivers and canals left some tannin stains on the hull near the waterline. These wash off easily with acid. I hope a good topsides wax job will limit future staining.
The crew at Bock always does a thorough job of powerwashing the hull while all the critters and slime are still moist and easy to remove. On Monday they will move us to the blast pad and start removing all of the old bottom paint. Should be fun.

One thought on “Phase I: Complete”

Leave a Reply